Do I need to upgrade my PSU ?

mishmash

mishmash

mishmash

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4 Jun 2008
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8
I have the following :-

Hyper 580w Type R PSU
Thermaltake Armor LCS
ATI Radeon X1950XTX Crossfire
Running Vista 64bit

I have the following arriving tomorrow :-

Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550 LGA775 'Yorkfield' 2.83GHz 12MB-cache
Corsair 4GB DDR2 XMS2 Dominator PC2-8500C5 TwinX (2x2GB)
Gigabyte GA-X48-DQ6 Intel X48 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard

Would you reckon the 580W is enough ?
If not what would you go for.

Other than that should i be able to overclock above 3.6Ghz ?

Thanks
 
Do a search on here for failed Hipers. I would not be trusting that psu with that rig. Several of us have lost components to exploding /failed Hipers. They are also incapable of delivering their stated output of 580w. Couple that with the fact that they have a weak 360w for the 12v supply and it would be best if you got a new psu.

Something from Zalman, Corsair, Seasonic or Be Quiet along the lines of 600w or so would be good.
 
agree with pastymuncher, get rid of the PSU as they can blow and take other components with it, i'd opt for corsair's 620W as they have good rep with other users
 
Those x1950xtx need a lot of juice.

And you have not stated how many fans,hard drives, optical drives you are running.

I agree with the premise of dumping the Hiper.

But if buying a new psu you may as will buy overkill so you don't need to replace it for years.

My Tagan 480w which I bought 4 years ago was still happy powering an oc q6600, p35 mobo, 4gb ram, d5 laing water pump, 8 120mm fans,2 optical drives, 4 hard drives, floppy drive.

The addition of a blu ray writer was too much for the little beastie (overclock on the quad became unstable) so got myself an OCZ 1000w elitexstream as an replacement.

See here for reviews of lots of psu's

http://www.jonnyguru.com/modules.php?name=NDReviews&op=Review_Cat&recatnum=13

If I was you and for the little extra it costs, I'd be aiming for 750W-800W as an replacement.

They are some very good ones like the Antec,OCZ,Coolermaster, Corsair etc.
 
mishmash said:
Is 620W enough though ?

P.S is 3.6Ghz possible ?
Click to expand...
1. More than enough.
1950XTX peaks at 125W and that CPU probably peaks around 80W. Add 50W for other parts and you have good estimate for maximum peak draw.


2. CPUs are individuals, and motherboard and skills of overclocker also affect.
 
EsaT said:
1. More than enough.
1950XTX peaks at 125W and that CPU probably peaks around 80W. Add 50W for other parts and you have good estimate for maximum peak draw.


2. CPUs are individuals, and motherboard and skills of overclocker also affect.
Click to expand...

I agree but always nice to have some headroom.

When I bought my 480W tagan I was undecided for days. It wasn't really needed for the 3200 AMD, 1 gig ram, x800xt, 1 hard drive plus 1 optical drive and seemed a ludricous overkill at the time.

But you don't know how many more things you are likely to add over the next year or two.

And all (well almost all, my new psu excluded) psu get much worse ripple on the voltage as they get near their maximum wattage plus the volts start an drop on some or all the lines. Not helpful if trying to overclock and get stability.
 
Acid_death69 said:
i can recommened thermaltake PSU's fella ive got the tr2 550W, not sure about that particular model but they are a good make to go with:)
Click to expand...
Other Thermaltakes (not manufacturer, just brand) than Toughpowers are between junk and mediocre.
http://www.overclockers.com.au/wiki/Thermaltake_PSUs




Intel learned their lesson from NetBurst heater fiasco so they won't be making 150W heaters anymore. Graphic card makers have long had considerable challenges in keeping cards cool enough without lot of noise.
And every component which doesn't have big heatsink consumpts very little compared to CPU/GPU.
(diamond won't be available as component/heatsink building material in close future)

Efficiency of PSUs drops sharply below 20% load so too much oversized PSU wastes power most of the time when you're keeping PC on. And quality PSUs are under"rated" and have headroom so peak load going above 50% (about point which generally directly blows junk PSUs) isn't any problem.


dual Quad-SLI on 1100W
http://www.fudzilla.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=7772&Itemid=38
(more pics here)
So that much about needing kW just for couple cards...
 
EsaT said:
Other Thermaltakes (not manufacturer, just brand) than Toughpowers are between junk and mediocre.
http://www.overclockers.com.au/wiki/Thermaltake_PSUs


Efficiency of PSUs drops sharply below 20% load so too much oversized PSU wastes power most of the time when you're keeping PC on. And quality PSUs are under"rated" and have headroom so peak load going above 50% (about point which generally directly blows junk PSUs) isn't any problem.


QUOTE]

A bit harsh that. Most of the psu's in that link are two years or older and back then they were indeed bad. But two years is a long time in psu manufacturer and even the non toughpower q-fan series gets good reviews.

Valid point about efficiency and a good case for not going too OTT with your selection of psu.

However, a 750W at 20% would be using 150W and although a good psu efficiency may have then dropped from 86% to 82%, it still might be better efficiency than a poor psu.
Click to expand...
 
Thermaltake's current PSU line is still mixed bag so I don't see any reason to be less strict untill they've corrected their habits and clearly proven that they're dedicated to selling honestly rated PSUs.
Didn't take long to find models with specified ripples of 100mV for 3.3V and 5V and 150mV for 12V. (that makes also models without any mention of ripple suspicious)
 
Hi mishmash ,

this is my sys specs

OS XP PRO Service Pk3
CPU Intel Core2 Quad QX6800 LGA775 @ 2.93Ghz
COOLER Noctua NH-U12F A
MB Gigabyte P35-DS3R
RAM 4Gig PC2-6400C5(Corsair)DDR2 XMS Dominator DHX 2x2Gig
VGA ATi PCI-e HD4870 512Mb
LCD Dell Ultrasharp 24" 2407WFP
AUDIO SB X-Fi Fatal1ty
SPEAKERS Logitech X-530 5.1
CASE Lian-Li PC V2100+ II
PSU Hiper Type R 580w
CONTROLLER Adaptec 29160n 160 SCSI CARD
Drives
x1 Fujitsu Scsi 10k 36GB
x1 Compaqpc Scsi 10k 36GB
x2 WD Rapator SATA 10k 74GB
x1 WD Rapator SATA 10k 150GB
x1 Pioneer IDE DVD-RW DVR-110
x1 Asus IDE DVD-Rom E616A

ohh yeah x3 120 mm x1 80 mm fans aswell ..

An as u can see i`am using a hiper same as u m8 i`ve had mine for nealy 2 years an it`s still going strong !!! yes there some ppl that have had them pop on them , but other makes have dodgy PSU`s as well , tbh if ya PSU has being going all this time with a hitch why change ?? as u can see i`am running a shed load of gear on mine an it does it np :)

b4 i got the HD4870 i was using a X1900 xtx 512mb np aswell

so to answer ya Q if ya specs are gonna be more than i`am running why change ya PSU ... it`ll do ;)
 
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I can definitely reccomend the thermaltake toughpower psu's. I recently upgraded to a toughpower 750w from a 3 year old enermax noisetaker 600. Currently powering the rig in sig without any issues, and as a bonus its a very quiet unit as well.
 
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